Tag:

Suspense

Review

Vantage Point

by Henrietta Thornton

The ultra-wealthy Wieland family seems determined to prove that money can’t buy happiness. Their pain-filled past has created a persistent myth that they’re cursed, with family members dying in spectacularly awful ways, including on the Titanic. The deaths all happen in April, and as this absorbing thriller opens, so does that terrible month. Orphaned by the curse, or so she believes, is Clara, who’s long suffered from bulimia and lives in a house on the grounds of her family’s compound in Maine. In the neighboring mansion, Vantage Point, live her brother, Teddy, and his wife, Jess, who’s Clara’s best friend and formerly a poor local. Teddy is running for the U.S. Senate and the stakes are high for the family to portray a happy, successful front, which means keeping the uninhibited Clara mostly hidden. But someone has other ideas, and a brutal sex video is released to the public featuring a much younger, drunk, emaciated Clara (details are very much on the page). It’s the first in a line of humiliating videos that Clara thinks are fake but can’t be sure, making technology an interesting plot point alongside the family turmoil. Sligar’s character creation and portrayal of family and class dynamics are superb, adding to a realistic and gripping tale with a satisfying ending.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

A Long Time Gone

by Brian Kenney

The third in Moehling’s Ben Packard series is far and away the best. Deputy Packard is off work—he’s on leave, pending an investigation into a shooting—which gives him the time to investigate some new information about the disappearance of his older brother, Nick, who left their lakeshore family home when they were just kids, never to be seen again. The new information attracts his mother, Pam, to northern Minnesota, as much to check in on Ben as to explore where Nick may be buried. Pam—one of Moehling’s greatest creations—is a New Age, crystal wearing, sex-positive, Wiccan practitioner who would like nothing more than to see Ben find a boyfriend and does everything in her powers to hook him up. While the search for Nick takes a bit of a back seat, Ben can’t help but pursue a far more expansive and contemporary investigation that exposes corruption among County officials. See why so many people were happy to see Ben out of the picture? Add to this another story, brief but hugely meaningful, that provides yet more information about Nick. It’s amazing how Moehling keeps all these narrative balls in the air, but even more amazing is how they eventually come together. For those who love classic mysteries, police procedurals, and family drama.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

This is Why We Lied

by Jeff Ayers

Will Trent and Sara Linton’s honeymoon gets cut short in Slaughter’s latest page-turner. Will surprises his new bride with a trip to an idyllic lodge isolated from people and technology. At first, it’s lovely, and they tell the other guests that Will is a mechanic and Sara’s a teacher. That ruse dissipates quickly when the manager of the lodge, Mercy, is stabbed to death, and Will accidentally impales his hand on the knife. Everyone staying there is an immediate suspect, whether it’s the other guests with secrets or Mercy’s family, who all have a shady past. Verbal and physical abuse is as common as drinking water to these depraved individuals, and all of them had a motive to kill Mercy. Will finds a phone connection and gets his partner at the GBI, Faith, to help discover the true killer. The ABC show Will Trent was renewed for a third season, to premiere in January 2025. While fans wait for the show to start again, they can dive into this intense, disturbing, and fascinating story of depravity, betrayal, and hope. The surprise ending shocks and satisfies, and the next Will Trent novel cannot come fast enough.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Last One at the Wedding

by Brian Kenney

I’m going to call it like it is: this is one of the best books of the year. Frank Szatowski—widower, UPS deliverer, and all-around good guy—gets a call from his daughter, mid-twenty-something Maggie, inviting him to her wedding in rural New Hampshire. The two have been estranged for several years, so this invite is a big deal for Frank, who brings along his sister (she’s practically Maggie’s mother). But from the moment they arrive at the incredibly lavish estate, nothing is what they expect. Maggie, it turns out, is marrying into a vastly rich tech family—think the Dells—and Frank’s attempts to connect to Maggie’s new family only succeed in making both him and the family members increasingly suspicious. Son-in-law Aidan Gardner is a recluse, accused by the locals of murder; Mom is hiding up in the main house, a drink- and drug-addled shadow of a woman; Dad is a complete control freak who enforces his own time system (seriously); and Maggie is the cheerleader, backing the families’ crazy decisions. Frank’s dialog—both internal and external—is one of the joys of the book, and Frank keeps discovering new forms of evil, like so many nesting Babushka dolls, as he investigates the Gardners. But will he be able to convince his daughter to leave? Strong characterization, a fascinating environment, and a good wallop of suspense makes for one compelling read. Relish it.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Dead Money

by Henrietta Thornton

Dead money is slang for wealth that’s held up by a clause in a will, and after Elon Musk-type Trevor Canon is found dead in his San Francisco tech-bro office, investigator Mackenzie Clyde finds that he recently had just such an amendment inserted into his will. A lawyer who now works as a sort of fixer at a venture capital firm, Mackenzie isn’t the most likely candidate to help the FBI with their case, but she’s ambitious and jumps at the chance when her boss wants to know what happened. Investigating Trevor’s associates is much more complicated than it should be. She’s also subjected to more exposed ankles in mens suits than she’d like, not to mention corporate babble like one associate’s drive to “leverage the leader that lays dormant within clients…to manifest a corporate identity in ways they’ve never crystallized” (snort). The FBI agent she works with, a rich kid who bucks the stereotypes of his upbringing, is having none of it, and together the duo relentlessly digs to the center of a technical and political tangle. Get ready for some startling revelations along the way. Lawyer and debut author Kerr was one of the first employees at Airbnb, and his absorption of the BS is our gain.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Den of Iniquity

by Jeff Ayers

After a long gap, Jance brings back former Seattle Homicide Detective, now Private Investigator, J.P. Beaumont, and, like a fine wine, Beaumont ages well. He lives in Bellingham with his wife, and when his grandson arrives out of nowhere and wants to live with them to finish school, Beaumont realizes that his family is not living the idyllic life he thought. His daughter and her husband are separated, his son-in-law has a new girlfriend, and the living arrangements were too much for his grandson to handle. When a friend from his past asks for help, he can’t say no. A death ruled accidental due to a fentanyl overdose was officially closed by the authorities, but those who knew the victim say he would not touch drugs. As Beaumont investigates, he discovers that there are more “accidental” deaths, and the truth is more complicated than he can imagine. It doesn’t help that he’s also investigating the new girlfriend who broke up his grandson’s parents, and records show she is not who she claims to be. All of this plays out in February 2020, as the world is about to shut down, creating an impending doom in which the reader knows what is about to happen and longs to warn Beaumont and his family. Jance’s mysteries are like comfort food, guaranteeing readers a great story with authentic and realistic characters that will leave them wanting more after the last bite.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Bad Liar

by Henrietta Thornton

I could have sworn that Tami Hoag had an Oprah Book Club pick years ago. That’s what spurred me to pick this up–I usually like Oprah’s picks, and if one of those authors has something new, I’m intrigued. It seems I was wrong, but the happy mistake led me to meet the steadfast Sheriff’s Office Detective Annie Broussard and watch her doggedly investigate three maybe-interlinked crimes in her small south Louisiana town. Local fishermen find a body in the water, its face shot off. There are soon two possibilities as to whom it could be, as two local men are found to be missing. One, Marc Mercier, is a former high-school football star in a town where the sport is everything, who’s returned from time away to his doting mother’s embrace. His Yankee wife is none too happy to be stuck in “Ass Crack, Louisiana,” and might be getting “comforted” by a suave coworker. Also nowhere to be found is Robbie Fontenot, a doctor’s son who has gone off the rails due to Oxycontin addiction. His own doting mother believes he’s on the mend and is desperate for someone to care about where he could be, but not having much luck till she storms the sheriff’s office and meets Annie. Rural loyalties, mothers’ love, sibling rivalries, a hefty dose of Cajun language and slang (glossary provided), and swampy humidity steaming off the pages combine to make a memorable and affecting read. Oprah, take note!

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Note

by Henrietta Thornton

Friends Lauren, Kelsey, and May call themselves the Canceled Crew. Each has been vilified in the media, Lauren, who’s Black, because it’s assumed that she slept her way to her job as director of the Houston Symphony; May, who’s Chinese American, for a terrible incident on a subway platform that was filmed and went viral; and Kelsey, who’s white and rich, for being suspected of killing her husband. The women are now on a girl’s weekend in the Hamptons, trying to put it all behind them and let their hair down a bit, but the note of the book’s title throws them back into chaos. It’s a prank that isn’t so funny after the recipient goes missing and the three women are firmly back in the spotlight, a situation that widens every crack in their relationship with one another and their partners and families. Burke makes every character hyper real here, portraying the effects of privilege, thoughtlessness, and poor decisions with deft precision. The strong ties we feel to old friends, no matter current circumstances, are also shown in sharp relief. Add to this a page-turning whodunit element and it all adds up to a cracking read.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Your Dark Secrets

by Brian Kenney

Marr’s thrillers have a knack for getting inside the minds and lives of modern women, and this one continues that run, here in the high-flying (and sometimes just high) world of celebrity PR. Addison Stern is a bitchy, ruthless PR star to the stars. She’ll do anything for her clients, including ruining junior media employees who might be naive enough to try to look beneath the surface of the stars’ fake tans and Botox. She’s vying for a partnership at her firm, and finding her pharma-bro client, Phinneas Redwood, dead is not what she needs, especially when that murder is followed by other crimes that all lead investigators to Addison. She never thought she’d see the day, but she partners with her private-detective ex, Connor Windell—he’s only too happy to leave a losing streak in Las Vegas—to get to the bottom of things and save herself. The two are off on a jet-setting investigation that takes them to Monaco and other more-money-than-sense places in search of the truth. The touch of Jackie Collins here–the ridiculous riches if not the steaminess—adds a deliciously over-the-top touch to a fast-moving, satisfying whodunit.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Hometown Vendetta

by Henrietta Thornton

Small-town struggles meet CIA relentlessness in prolific author Abramson’s latest thriller. It stars two likable protagonists, FBI Special Agent Amberlyn Reiner and Marine Captain Luke Steele. As the book opens, former school psychologist Amberlyn is planning to see her best friend, but plans are derailed when her skills are needed in the investigation of an Oklahoma City bombing-like event. Also entangled is Luke, who’s normally tasked with carrying the nuclear “football” in his role as a military aide to the President, but who is asked to help after he recognizes a connection to his hometown in photos of the event. Amberlyn has been bereaved by the bombing and Luke is loath to return to the town where he was relentlessly bullied, not to mention the high school reunion that will offer valuable investigative opportunities but one for the now-grown bullies to continue their abuse. So neither wants to be there, a feeling that’s more than vindicated by the danger visited on them in the town by the bullies…and perhaps by others. But they also find in the town kindnesses and even a fledgling romance, which entwine well with the criminal side of the story to create a gripping and satisfying series debut.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail